The Ultimate Diplomacy

Mr Obama rang Mr Brown as he flew home, in what many suspected was an attempt to make amends.

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

Oh, my. Three points:

1) Smarter diplomacy is supposedly the stock in trade of this administration. Is this smart? Insulting our oldest ally? No, it's not smart -- it's left-wing score-settling against Britain for being "too right wing" for having supported Bush's efforts in Iraq, and perhaps for being a colonial power through the fifties.

2) They don't know what the fuck they're doing.

3) The quote shows the arrogance and thin-skinnedness of this administration. Utterly unable to graciously confess error and seek forgiveness, they instead dig their heels in and claim We meant to do that. They intended, it seems, for no particularly good reason, to alienate our most reliable and oldest ally. (Apologies to Australia which also can lay claim to that title.) That's their story -- we meant to let Britain know it was no more important to us than, say, Trinidad and Tobago.

Perhaps Obama's game -- in insulting Britain and selling out Poland and the Czech Republic to the Russian wolves -- is to teach all countries a lesson: Never, ever support a Republican President, for there will be a grim reckoning when we socialists get back into power.

Politics begins at the water's edge, now. A lot of things are changing. Hey, did you hear that dissent was no longer patriotic?

We live in an age of miracles and wonders, my friends.

Thanks to Entelechy in the Hot Air comments for highlighting this, which I'd utterly missed.